Seattle's "red light" district proposal on hold

Published 10:00 pm, Monday, April 17, 2006

City Councilman Peter Steinbrueck has stalled consideration of a proposed 310-acre strip club district south of Safeco Field, roughly from Interstate 5 to Third Avenue South.

Steinbrueck, who chairs the council's urban development committee, had planned to put the proposal to a vote of his committee Thursday. Instead, he has asked the city's planning commission, an advisory committee of volunteers, what it thinks of the idea. Steinbrueck would like to explore an alternative that would allow such clubs citywide, with some restrictions.

Some Oregon Residents Upset at Prospect of Pumping Their Own GasBuzz 60

Doug Baldwin playcallingBy Michael-Shawn Dugar, SeattlePI

Van Crashes Into Pedestrians Injuring SixAssociated Press

US military to accept transgender recruits after Trump drops appealEuronews

Snow on Christmas Eve, 2017Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Ice carving at WinterfestSeattle Post-Intelligencer

Amtrak derails near OlympiaGrant Hindsley / SeattlePI

Golden retriever meets Darth Vader and EwokSeattle Post-Intelligencer

"We would like to know if the Planning Commission endorses the Mayor's proposal as the best way to provide for adult cabarets, or if the Commission recommends further study and/or other changes," Steinbrueck wrote in a memo to the commission.

The commission will likely review the proposal, but first needs to get a better sense for how detailed an evaluation Steinbrueck is seeking relative to its other duties, said Director Barbara Wilson.

The issues stems from a federal court ruling last year that the city's 17 years of perpetual moratoria on strip clubs was unconstitutional. Since then, there's been little restriction on strip clubs development in Seattle -- only de facto rules that they be situated commercial or industrial zones appropriate for performance art venues.

Short of zoning, the City Council and Mayor Greg Nickels last year approved conduct rules meant to dissuade businesspeople from opening new clubs, including restrictions against dancers being near patrons or performing in dimly lighted venues.

And late last year, Nickels proposed the city establish the club district in the largely industrial area. Officials with Nickel's planning office were not available for comment Tuesday. Steinbrueck has not taken a position on the Nickel's proposal.

But he now says it deserves another look, after hearing several dozen residents of Georgetown, Beacon Hill and other South Seattle communities testify against it at a hearing last week.

"There was a chorus of people protesting what they saw as a 'red light district' and they felt that this area was their shopping area, their transportation corridor to and from work; and that it was unfair," Steinbrueck said. "Our largess goes to the north and our distress goes to the south."